Critics agree that much of Southeast Asia desperately needs judicial reform and rule of law. Yet, there is remarkably little comparative scholarship on law and legal institutions in the region. In this blog, I'll follow constitutional developments in Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, as well as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Friday, April 20, 2012

A constitutional right to smoke? (Indonesia)

If somebody had asked me whether any court had upheld a smoker's right to smoke, I'd have guessed no. However, Indonesia's Mahkamah Konstitusi comes pretty close with its most recent decision. This week the court ruled that a government ban on smoking in public spaces must also require public spaces and workplaces to establish "smoking rooms" for anybody who wishes to tar up their lungs. According to The Jakarta Post, in reading the decision out, Chief Justice Mahfud argued that, "should the government fail to provide smoking rooms in state agencies; it would eliminate the right of smokers to smoke." I'm not quite sure where the justices are finding this "right" - it's certainly not in the plain text of the Constitution. If anything, it reminds me of the substantive due process jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court, which established a "penumbra" of privacy rights.

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About Dom

Dominic Nardi is a third year Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan in the Political Science Department. He is interested in judicial politics in developing countries, particularly Myanmar, the Philippines, and Indonesia. His dissertation research focuses on how non-state actors influence judicial behavior. In addition to his research at the U of M, he has also worked for legal organizations in Indonesia and the Philippines and has published articles about judicial politics in Southeast Asia both in law reviews and in popular media.